


Five Times Tony Wondered If He Could Live Up To Ben Parker

by hvllanders



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: 5+1 Things, Afterlife, Angst, Ashes Scene in Avengers: Infinity War Part 1, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Father-Son Relationship, Fights, Fluff, Gen, Grieving, Hurt Peter Parker, Loss, Mentioned Ben Parker, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Post-Endgame, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Whump, so really the best kind of fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-05
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-10-10 17:30:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20531840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hvllanders/pseuds/hvllanders
Summary: (And the One Time He Didn't Have to Guess)or:The story of how Tony Stark accidentally came to parent a teenage superhero.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been reading Irondad Spiderson since I've starting reading Spider-Man fanfic but I've never tried my hand at writing one. So, I figured, what better way to start than with some tried and true tropes :) 
> 
> Here's my take on the 5+1, Peter and Tony style. If you enjoy or have any ideas for future chapters, please consider leaving a comment down below, they are a fic writers lifeblood <3

Tony Stark hadn’t been trying to adopt a kid.

In general practice, he tried not to adopt anything or anyone at all. He’d had opportunities over the years- chances to save a dog from a shelter (he’d just bought the shelter) or pay for a penguin to continue to live on an iceberg or something (in this case, he’d just bought an entire island for the colony). He’d even technically “adopted” a few kids by paying for their living and education expenses through a charity he’d set up. But, in general practice, Tony Stark tried not to “adopt” in the sense of actually taking care of another living being. He could barely take care of himself.

On good days, he remembered to shower and eat and sleep for more than a few hours at a time. Living life as a genius multi-billion-dollar superhero didn’t always lend itself to good days. Most of the time, he was lucky to get out of bed and stumble into the lab. Most of the time.

So, Tony did what he did best- threw money at things and then watched from afar. And that was that.

Peter Parker was an exception.

Well. He had tried the whole throwing money and suits at him and watching from afar thing. Just out of habit. But after the Great Homecoming Fiasco ™, Tony knew he had to step up.

(Not, of course, that he hadn’t want to step up before. Or hadn’t been trying. But when Tony Stark let people into his heart, they usually ended up hurt. So, he kept his distance.)

But they had slipped into an easy rhythm. He’d made the kid’s internship real, under the pretense of actually giving him school credit and a place to use that big brain of his, and actually because Tony enjoyed spending time with him. Peter would come over a few times a week and they’d tinker in the lab together and maybe get some dinner. It was all easy. Too easy.

But, really, he shouldn’t be throwing around words like “adoption,” even in in his mind. The kid had a family. He didn’t need adopting.

A text from May Parker flitted across the screen in his lab, interrupting his thoughts. _Can you keep an eye out for Peter?_

_Yeah, of course, _he quickly responded. They were getting better at this, the whole communication thing. _What’s up?_

_He said there was a huge robbery happening you were also called into? I’m just being worried._

Tony frowned. He was lounging in his Hulk fuzzy pants, watching the latest episodes of Brooklyn Nine-Nine in the lab as to not disturb Pepper’s afternoon nap. He was about as far from a fight as was humanly possible. And it wasn’t like the kid to lie to May. Well. About something like this.

_I’ll check on him_, he replied, because it was true. He’d give Peter the benefit of the doubt. Maybe May had misheard him. Regardless, if there was some huge robbery going on, he wanted to look out for the kid.

“FRIDAY, where is Peter Parker right now?”

The screen playing Brooklyn Nine-Nine cleared away, revealing a blue map of New York with a pulsing light indicating Peter’s location. “_Peter Parker is currently in an apple orchard approximately twelve miles away from his home location.”_

“What?” He squinted closer at the screen, as if the map would tell him more than FRIDAY could. If he was showing up on the map, he must be wearing the suit, but why?

“_Peter Parker is currently in an apple orchard-”_

“Yeah, yeah,” Tony waved his hand, cutting the AI off, “I heard you the first time. But what is he doing all the way out there?”

“_My records indicate very low levels of criminal activity in this area.”_

Tony fiddled with a pen on his workbench, trying to ignore the irrational thumping of his heart. Something was off.

FRIDAY chimed in as though she could read his mind. “_Mr. Parker currently has a normal resting heart and respiratory rate. He does not seem to be in a large amount of distress.”_

“I-” He let out a long sigh. “This is weird. Why is he in some apple field? Why is he lying to May?”

“_Would you like me to connect you with Mr. Parker?”_

“Yeah, sure, put me through.”

He kicked back in his chair as the lines connected, swinging his slippered feet up onto the desk and chewing the pen cap. There was a moment’s pause, and then he heard steady breathing. “Mr. Stark?”

Tony let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “Hey, kid. You okay?”

“Uh, yeah.” There was a shifting on the line. “I’m fine. Great. Why did you call?”

Tony bit down harder than he intended on the cap of the pen. The bitter taste of ink filled his mouth. “Oh, I don’t know. I just heard through the grapevine that you were taking down some extremely big bank robbery and wanted to check in.”

“Oh.” He could hear Peter’s wheels turning. “Yep. Uh, I’m fighting them right now. As we speak, actually. Should be finished up soon.”

Tony might not have been semi-adoptive parent of the year, but he could tell a lie when he heard one. “I’ll come help you.” He stood up, Hulk fuzzy pants and aching, protesting limbs be damned, and called a suit over.

“No, no,” Peter’s defense was too fast, shaky. “Don’t worry. I’ve got it under control.”

“It’s all good.” Tony stepped into the suit, sending a quick text off to Pepper so she wouldn’t be worried. “I’m only seven minutes away. I’ll help with the clean-up.”

“Okay.” Peter’s voice betrayed defeat. “Yeah, I’ll…I’ll stay here and wait for you.”

Unsurprisingly, there were no banks nor robberies happening in the apple orchard where Peter Parker sat alone. He was in a bank of trees, surrounded by bruised and rotten fruit, hard to see in the rapidly dwindling daylight. He didn’t look up as Tony landed next to him.

“You okay?” FRIDAY had already told him he was fine, told him there was nothing to worry about and still. He couldn’t help but worry about this kid, this stupid kid who had somehow wrapped Tony around his little finger.

“Yeah.” Peter’s cheeks pinked. He kept his gaze trained on an apple near his foot, mumbling something under his breath.

“What was that?” Tony stepped out of the suit, shivering despite himself in the early winter air. The days were still relatively warm, but after the sun went down, the atmosphere quickly developed a biting chill.

Peter’s jaw squared, and he looked pointedly forward. “I already told you I was okay. I told you I had it handled.”

A twinge of irritation plucked at Tony’s still rapidly beating heart. “Okay, but what you _didn’t _tell me was that you weren’t really fighting a bank robbery. Or that you weren’t fighting anything at all.”

The apple crunched and squished under Peter’s foot. “I didn’t want you to come. I wanted to be alone.”

And though Tony wanted so desperately to snap at the kid, to impart to him that you couldn’t just lie about your super hero-ing activities to the two people in charge of your very existence, that it wasn’t okay to go gallivanting in a suit every time you felt teenage angst, that his heart was still thundering a thousand miles a minute and he didn’t quite know why he was having this reaction except of course he did, it was because he had thought, for a moment, that Peter’s life might be in danger, and somehow, some-fucking-how Peter had rapidly become marked in the VERY IMPORTANT category of Tony’s sympathetic nervous system. Yes, he wanted desperately to tell all of his and none of this to Peter, to yell at him, to blow off some steam, to let out the sheer terror he felt at the realization that he cared about someone so deeply.

And here was where things got tricky. Because everything in him, everything the world had taught him up until this point, was screaming to run. Run before he tried to fix everything. Run before things ended up even more broken than before. Run before things got sticky, before the apple cracked beneath Peter’s foot and all the worms crawled out.

But he opened his mouth anyways. “Do you still want to be alone?”

Peter gave a half-hearted shrug, an almost imperceptible twitch of the shoulder.

Tony let out a long, shaking breath. He scrubbed a hand over his face, and, before he had time to question anything further, walked forward to sit down next to Peter, kicking a few half-rotted apples out of the way. “Well, you’re not alone now, like it or lump it. And I’m even in my Hulk pajamas, so you know it’s good.”

Peter huffed a laugh in response, but Tony could tell it was more for his own benefit. Uncharacteristic nerves crackled in his stomach as silence swept between them. What was he supposed to do? What was he supposed to say if Peter wouldn’t even tell him what was wrong?

“Little past apple season, huh?” He kicked fruit over towards the pile near Peter’s feet. “I didn’t even know we had apples this close to us.”

“Yeah, I…” Peter’s face turned towards him for the first time, though his gaze was still somewhere far away. “I used to come here.”

“Oh.” There was a weight to Peter’s words, an emotional baggage promised. Tony didn’t usually do emotional baggage. But he pressed on. “Really?”

“Yeah.” Peter’s voice dropped even lower, and Tony had to strain to listen. “It was my uncle’s favorite place. We came at least three times a season.”

An uncle.

The image of Peter Parker stretched and expanded in Tony’s mind, and suddenly everything was both shifted into clarity and knocked off-kilter. May and Peter had always seemed like an indestructible team, but now he could see the idea of a hand on Peter’s shoulder; someone to drive him to decathlon practice or to teach him how to build a radio from junkyard parts. There was still so much Tony didn’t know. It was terrifying.

He chose his next words carefully. “You haven’t been back here in a while?”

“No.” There was a whispered longing in Peter’s words. “I haven’t.”

But, because Tony was Tony and he couldn’t just _sit _and _wonder _forever, he couldn’t just dance around the subject, he had to be blunt, “Kid, why did you lie to me and your aunt about where you were?”

There was a long silence, the kind that stretched and stretched and stretched. Tony wasn’t the patient type. He blew bubbles in his gum; he didn’t wait for it to expand into nothingness. But he fought the urge to quip, fought the urge to get angry, to press the kid. Because, deep down, he understood all of those responses were reactions to his own fear. His own terror that, for whatever reason, the world had chosen him to comfort Peter Parker in this moment.

“It’s his birthday.” Peter finally spoke, face guarded, eyes searching Tony’s. He wasn’t sure what Peter was looking for- should he be accepting, should he be open, should he look sad, happy? “Well,” his gaze dropped back down towards his ankles, “it _was_his birthday. I don’t know how things count when you’re dead.”

Tony shrugged. “I figure it’s all the same.”

“Okay.” This seemed to encourage the kid, whose shoulder bumped against Tony’s. He was struck by the ease of their touch, the warmth it held. Whatever he said, Peter seemed to accept. There was an odd sort of comfort found in that weighty sense of responsibility. “It’s his birthday today. And…I don’t know. May always tries really hard to make things good on these days. She makes me scrambled cheesy eggs like I like and I’ll stay home from school and we’ll watch stupid sitcoms together, and, what I’m trying to say is that I’m not ungrateful for her or anything, but…” he trailed off, face searching Tony’s. 

“Of course, you’re not ungrateful. She knows that.”

“I just…” Peter huffed a breath. “Sometimes, I just need to be alone. It’s all so loud. And it’s all so oppressively sad to have a whole day where you’re meant to be happy dedicated to being sad. And I wanted to get away.” He kicked half-heartedly at the apples.

“So, you came here.”

“Yeah.” Peter squinted at the dying sun across the field.

There were five hundred unasked questions on Tony’s lips, but he chose his next words carefully. “You know you don’t have to be alone if you don’t want to, right?”

“I’m glad you came.” Peter bowed his head, nudging shoulders again.

This humbled Tony more than he would often admit. “Of course.”

“You know,” Peter picked up an apple and chucked it into the trees. It sailed up high above the leaves, crashing down somewhere in the far distance. “I thought I would feel something. Coming here. We had so many good memories. But I don’t…I don’t feel him.” He squeezed another apple in his hands, looked towards the trees. Considering. “I don’t feel him anywhere.”

And though they were barely at this point, Tony wrapped a hand around Peter’s shoulder, tentatively pulling the kid into his side. To his relief, Peter responded in kind, collapsing inward as though this was what he had been waiting for all along.

“It’s hard, isn’t it?”

“’S not hard, it’s…” Peter shook his head, “it’s insurmountable.”

“Well…” And Tony hesitated before speaking, because he didn’t want to screw this up- he had never done this before, had never given a parent talk in any shape or form. “I find it hard to resurrect the dead.”

But Peter looked up at him, his eyes confused and needy, he _needed _him, he needed Tony, so he had no choice but to press on, to keep talking. “I mean that. Honestly. We run around in circles, holding their things, visiting their places. But they aren’t there. Not in the way we want, at least. And we think if we’re alone, if we hold it all in, we’re stronger somehow. That there shouldn’t be hard days or hard weeks or, hell, even hard months. Because there needs to be a logic to it all.”

Peter nodded, and for the first time, his voice sounded remotely watery. “I just want it to end. I want it to be over. But if I let go, I’ll let go of him too.”

“No, you won’t.” Tony squeezed him tighter. “That’s why we have each other. That’s why you have May. And me, if you want. That’s where they live on, in us, staying in company with each other, being there for one another. Not letting someone walk alone.”

They fell into silence, and he felt Peter’s eyes. But he couldn’t meet his gaze, too worried he had messed something up, said something wrong, somehow royally screwed the pooch. But when Peter finally spoke, it was words Tony hadn’t been expecting at all. “I think he would have liked you.”

And Tony’s voice was huskier than he intended, “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Peter turned back to the sunset. “His name was Ben, by the way.”

“Well, I owe Ben Parker my thanks for making such a good kid.”

The sun dipped lower behind the trees, and the evening chill began to press more insistently into hip bones and fingers. Tony squeezed Peter’s shoulder. “What do you say, kid? Think we should get back and let your aunt know you’re alright?”

“Okay.”

They stood up together, Tony’s limbs aching, Peter dusting himself off. “I’ll have to put my fuzzy pants through the wash.” He gestured to his backside, now coated in dirt. “Hopefully it doesn’t screw up their softness. Because last time I let Pepper wash them, they came back _significantly _less soft.”

Peter smiled, but it was distant.

“What?” Tony was already pushing his parental bounds tonight, he knew, but he couldn’t help himself.

“It’s nothing.” Peter scraped the dirt with his toe.

“Don’t do that, you’re gonna get the suit even dirtier than it already is.”

Peter searched his eyes. “Do you think I should like…say goodbye?”

The enormity of the situation stretched before Tony. There was a man who meant a lot to Peter whom Tony, previous to this conversation, hadn’t even known existed. This Ben Parker, whoever he had been, had left some kind of looming shadow in Peter; one of great love, of great pain. “Do you want to?”

Peter shrugged.

“Okay, well, I’m going to get the suit back online so we can blast out of here, so you take your time and come over when you’re ready, alright?”

The kid nodded, and Tony returned to the suit. It would only take him a few seconds to prepare for flight, but no one needed to know. He watched the kid face the sun again for a few moments, square his shoulders, bow his head. Tony looked away. _Thank you, Ben Parker, whoever you are._

Peter turned back towards him, painting a smile on. “Can I fly the suit?”

God. He would do anything for that kid.

_Please don’t let me screw this up._


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize- this chapter took me a little longer than expected, but I'm happy with what turned out! I kinda let it see where it took me...something I want to explore w/this work is the idea of Tony being consistently out of his element (bc I feel like that doesn't happen often), and although I love a good fluffy Peter and Tony interaction where they both just banter together, I wanted to consider that awkward stage in a relationship where you're like, "Woah, we are getting close but things are still kinda weird and sometimes I don't know what so say" sort of thing, so I hope that comes across.
> 
> Anyway, thank you so much for reading, I'd love to know what you thought in the comments!

Tony was over for dinner.

_Dinner._

It hadn’t been his idea. If things had gone _his _way, they would all be at the upscale burger place downtown where you could get wagyu sliders and milkshakes in intricately carved mason jars. But if there was one thing he had learned from the past year, it was that once Peter got an idea in his head, it was hard to change course. And May Parker was no exception.

“If we’re going to do this thing together, we should do it properly,” she had buzzed at him over a recent phone conversation.

He’d frowned. “Do what?” From his perspective, they were already doing ‘it’ pretty well. The kid had only gotten one concussion the whole month, which was a new record.

May sighed deeply across the line. He hoped (fruitlessly, he knew) she would drop the topic. “Tony Stark, you’re co-parenting my kid. It’s time we acknowledged that.”

“Excuse me?” he spluttered. He had taken a larger role in Peter’s life, sure. But co-parenting seemed like a weighty word to throw around before wagyu burgers were had.

May wasn’t having it. “Don’t act like you don’t know what I mean. He’s tinkering in your lab or swinging around in New York in a suit you made him more often than he’s home.”

“Well,” Tony scoffed, vying for time. “He would be swinging around in a suit I _didn’t _make him otherwise, and-”

“That’s not the issue,” she said, and something about her tone made Tony blush, chastened. He felt like a child purposefully evading the right answer when the teacher asked.

“So how are we supposed to,” he searched for the words she’d used earlier, “do this properly?”

“Well, you can start by coming over for dinner.”

He blinked. “Dinner?”

“Is that a problem?”

It wasn’t a problem, of course. Probably. It just hadn’t been what he’d expected. He’d been thinking more along the lines of paying for Peter’s tuition or picking the kid up from Decathlon practice more often or getting groceries every other week from the nice organic place thirty minutes away.

“Tony?”

“Isn’t this kinda like two divorced parents sitting down and trying to give their kid a normal life?”

“Tony, what part of this is normal?”

She had him there.

“So?”

“So what?”

“Are you coming or not? I need to know how many meatballs to pick up.”

“I…” He rubbed away the beginnings of a tension headache. “Yeah. Sure. I’m there.”

So, he had paid for the groceries and shown up. It was his second time in the Parker residence, and the first time not built on a lie. Peter had answered the door, that familiar excited flush in his cheeks, bouncing on the balls of his feet, eager to show Tony the small apartment.

An odd feeling twisted in his chest as he took in the crumbs on the counter from a previously shared meal, the pillows on the couch that were all punched down and lumpy from use, the side table full of kitschy items (a photobooth roll with May and Peter making silly faces, a broken Disney World 2007 magnet, a tiny stuffed Chick Fil A cow). Because, try as he might, Tony Stark had never had a home.

He had built them, of course. He had built towering structures and small comfortable spaces- mountain homes and lake homes and everything in between because he had the money to do so, he had the best interior designers in the world, and they’d given him clean lines and white counters and a scrawling wall sign that said “family” or something equally cliché, but they had never given him _this_\- the smell of a cheap candle scented like sugar cookies and the warmth of a dilapidated lamp.

He suddenly felt very underdressed. Or maybe underdressed was the wrong word- but his suit felt too tight and his pants were bunching around his hips. Peter looked effortlessly comfortable in an oversized sweatshirt that had holes in its sleeves. Tony felt like an overly doled up show dog. Like a fool.

“And that’s where I like to sit when I come home from school and eat those cookies I’m always begging you for, and…” Peter seemed to notice Tony for the first time, his eyebrows drawing together. “Are you okay?”

Tony quickly smoothed his face into something less stupidly distraught. “Of course. Of course, I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Your face looked like this.” Peter screwed up his features into some mix of angst and stress that looked uncannily like Tony. “So, I thought I’d ask.”

“Well, I’m fine.”

Peter blinked. “Okay.”

Tony crossed his arms and tried to ignore how his suit tweaked at his elbows. Peter was still standing before him, now looking as though he was waiting for Tony to say something further. What should he talk about? Usually, when they were at the lab, conversation flowed naturally, but this felt…different for some reason.

“Oh!” Peter’s face lit up. “Look, I made us something. Appetizers!”

Tony assembled his face into something he hoped looked like excitement. “Sounds good.”

“Here.” Peter returned from the kitchen with a plate full of brownies. “Have however many you want.”

“Brownies before dinner?” Tony took one, trying to ignore how they were hard as rocks.

Peter was shoving no less than three in his mouth. “’s gld tashing.”

“What?”

He audibly swallowed. “It’s good tasting.”

“Oh.” Tony took a bite of his. The kid seemed to have inherited May’s cooking skills, which was to say, none at all, but he felt Peter’s eyes on his, so he forced a smile. “They are good.”

Peter smiled in response, and they lasped back into that uncomfortable silence.

Tony reached for something easy. “How’s school been?”

“Fine.” Peter shifted from side to side, playing with a hole in his sweater. “I got an A on my chemistry test.”

“That’s good.”

Peter shrugged.

“When’s May going to get home?” Maybe the change of pace would save him from this odd feeling.

Another shrug. Peter’s eyes were still watching him closely. “Why are you being weird?”

“What do you mean, being weird? I just drove all the way here and sat down. I haven’t had time to be weird.”

“I dunno.” Peter scraped a socked toe under the couch, kicking up dust bunnies. “You just seem weird.”

“Well,” Tony straightened back out his arms, his watch glinting in the dwindling sunlight, “I’m not. Being weird, I mean. Anyway, why don’t you show me your room? Got anything interesting in there?”

The kid’s face lit up, and, despite the slightly suspicious glint still in his eyes, he motioned Tony down a short hall. “Here, I don’t know if you remember, but it’s down this way.”

If Tony hadn’t been so in his head- thinking about why this had been the worst idea ever, how he definitely wasn’t cut out to “co-parent” if he couldn’t even hold a conversation, even thinking, ashamedly, about how he could get out of the dinner all together, what quick excuse he could come up with- maybe he wouldn’t have tripped over a box and smashed his face into the floor.

Or maybe he would have done it anyway.

All he knew is that one moment, he was watching Peter’s back disappear into a doorframe and considering if he could get Bruce to call in some fake emergency he would need to attend to, and the next there was a stabbing pain in his toe and he was face first onto the hardwood.

Peter yelped, but Tony felt he could only groan in response. God. He was getting too old to have his face smashed into things.

“Mr. Stark!”

“’M okay.” He slowly pushed himself up, sitting so his back was against the hallway wall. Great. This was all grand. Spectacular. “See, everything’s fine.”

“But your face.” Peter’s eyes were wide.

“My what?” But then he felt a slick wetness trickling from his nose. “Oh.”

It didn’t feel like anything was broken, which was a small victory, but his nose was streaming blood, and his browbone had definitely taken a beating.

“It’s okay, everything’s fine.” Even though everything was probably not fine, and his fingers were now warm with blood.

“I’ll get some tissues.” Peter was scrambling up, returning swiftly with a wad of toilet paper. “Here.”

Tony pressed them against his face, and, upon seeing Peter’s concerned look, gave a grimacing thumbs up. “Everything’s good. I’ve had worse.”

But even the thumb he used was covered in blood, and Peter looked less convinced of his alrightness than before. “I can get you an ice pack for your head too.”

“No, no.” He tried to wave a dismissive hand, but it didn’t really give the desired effect when covered in crimson. “It’s fine. I’m fine, really. Look, see?” He took the tissue from his face, but, to his horror, a new river of blood came gushing out, soaking the collar of his shirt.

Peter paled. “I really don’t think you’re okay.” He disappeared for a moment, returning with an ice pack. “I’m really sorry that box was there, May’s trying to get rid of stuff so there’s junk just laying all around and I should have moved it, but-”

“It’s okay, it’s okay.” He usually found Peter’s tendency to word vomit endearing, but tonight it made him feel unnerved. He sat back more fully against the wall, holding the tissue with one hand while his other fingers grew cold from the ice pack, and reached for a joke. “I think I’m going to start a new fashion trend with this shirt collar though.”

“I’m so-”

He shook his head. “Honestly, kid, it’s okay. I can buy another shirt. Hell, I could buy a dress shirt company if I wanted. It’s not going to hurt me. Although,” the thought of being covered in blood all through dinner flashed through his mind, “maybe I should run home and put something else on before May sees me all bloodied and beaten.”

“No, no,” Peter blurted out. “Don’t leave.”

“I’ll come right back.” Probably. He probably would.

“No, here, look, I can get you something to wear.” The kid’s face was a wreck of nerves and apology. Right. This whole “Tony Stark comes over for dinner thing” was new for the both of them. Uncharted territory. And Peter was nothing if not perceptive; he probably could smell the “I’m looking for an excuse to leave” reeking off Tony. 

He was still decidedly larger than both Peter in clothing size, and he didn’t know if “wear your partner’s clothing the first time you’re over at their house for dinner” was in May Parker’s co-parenting book. “Do you have anything that would fit?”

“Here, look, you can wear this.” The kid reached into the box, pulling out a large sweatshirt, pushing it into Tony’s arms. It would definitely be big enough, if not even a little roomy.

“Okay.” This was absurd. He was being absurd. He couldn’t leave. “Yeah. I’ll put it on when my nose stops gushing.”

“I’m really sorry.”

“It’s fine. Honestly, it’s fine.” He needed to lighten the mood before the kid took off his apologizing thing at a million miles a minute. “Maybe I should reinstate my offer to get you and your aunt into a nicer apartment complex if you’re having to get rid of stuff for space.”

Peter’s face clouded, and he scuffed the box with a contemplative toe. “May’s choosing to get rid of it. We have the room.”

“Hmmm.” There was a picture hanging on the wall opposite him, of a smiling young Peter being pushed on a swing by an older man. He eyed Peter carefully, the sweatshirt still in his lap. “You don’t want to get rid of this?”

Peter’s shoulder twitched. “I don’t know.”

Tony patted the space beside him. “Here, sit down. I might be a sec with this gusher I’ve got.”

Peter didn’t even deign him a half-smile and didn’t sit down next to him, but chose the space across from Tony so their knees were cramped together in the hallway. It was funny, seeing Peter underneath the old picture, a previous version of himself. He almost looked more like the man pushing him than the laughing boy on the swing. As his boyish features had begun to change, to harden, Tony recognized the cut of Ben’s jaw, the curl of his hair from the picture. Even something about the way they held their shoulders was the same.

It was odd- Tony had always assumed May as the biological connection to Peter’s family; he saw so much of the kid in her. But looking at the photos, the similarities were undeniable. A Ben Parker, reimagined.

Peter was still messing with the box, looking angsty now. With one hand he braced the cardboard while the other ripped off an extra piece of masking tape. They seemed to have been closed for a long time.

“Have you told May you don’t want to give stuff away?” Tony prompted.

Peter twisted the tape between his fingers. His brow crinkled and then smoothed, crinkled again. “I don’t want to bother her.”

“I don’t think you’d be bothering her.”

He shrugged again, waving the torn piece of tape side to side like a flag. “It’s my uncle’s stuff.”

Tony had known this, in some way, but it was different hearing it aloud. “Well, that doesn’t mean you can’t want to hold onto it. It doesn’t mean you have to give something away because someone else tells you to.”

But Peter fixed Tony with that straightforward, no-nonsense gaze of his, the one that pierced Tony straight through, and made him wonder how Peter could hold such conviction, such knowledge as he said simply, “It’s time.”

Tony looked down at the sweatshirt. It was ragged and old, smelling of must and nonuse. Peter followed his gaze, tugging at one of the sleeves. “This stuff, all the boxes…they’re his stuff, but they aren’t his treasured belongings. Most of it’s just junk. And there’s so much of it.”

This was true, Tony knew. The dead didn’t just leave behind beloved necklaces or family heirlooms. They left behind receipts and half-eaten leftovers and used tissues.

Peter’s face twisted into a half-smile. “And I thought, well, joked really, for a while that we should open up a museum.” His face grew distant. “Ben Parker: The Man, The Myth, The Legend or something. And everyone could come and see the granola bars he left in the pantry and the extra batteries he always kept in the bedside drawer and everything. I don’t know.” He tugged at the sweatshirt again, and Tony let it slide off his lap so Peter could hold it closer. “We ended up keeping all the really important stuff. His favorites. And then we just threw the rest in boxes.”

There weren’t may boxes that Tony could see, maybe just two or three. Either Ben Parker had been a frugal man, or May and Peter had kept a lot of things.

“And now May’s saying we should give it away. Or throw it away. She said she’s tired of ghosts and junk haunting the house.” The words hung importantly in the air. “And…I don’t know. It just seems weird. I don’t know what I’ll ever do with this,” he gestured to the sweatshirt, “He didn’t love it. It wasn’t his favorite. He just wore it while fixing our plumbing or vacuuming.” A smile ghosted across his face. “So…it’s not like it’s some special memory. But it’s a part of him, like…this touched him.”

“And you don’t want to give that away.”

Peter nodded, “It just feels weird.”

Tony circled back to his original argument, still unsure what to present. “Maybe you should tell your aunt.”

But Peter still shook his head. “I know it’s weird for her too. And hard. Just as hard as it is for me. And if this is what she needs to do to be happy, that’s okay with me. Honestly,” he said in answer to Tony’s questioning gaze. “It’s just strange. That’s all.”

And because Tony was a chronic fixer, that’s what he did, he couldn’t help but offer. “I could put it all in a storage container for you. That way, you could see it and have it whenever you wanted, but it wouldn’t have to be right here.”

“No.” But Peter shook his head, that familiar resolution returning back to his eyes. “No, it’s time. This stuff is just stuff. And a lot of it is stuff he probably didn’t care about at all. It doesn’t make sense to keep it around now.”

“Okay.” He was content if the kid was content. He pulled away the tissue gingerly. “Hey, look. Good as new.”

Peter gave a small smile. “I’m guessing you won’t let me apologize again.”

“Not a chance.”

They both chuckled, and then Peter passed the sweatshirt back over into Tony’s lap. “Here. You still definitely need to change before dinner. Your shirt is totally ruined.”

The fabric felt heavier than before. “Are…are you sure?”

Peter read his questioning gaze, and wistful sort of smile crossed his face. “Yeah, I’m sure. You can keep it if you want. It’s okay,” he added when Tony opened his mouth to protest. “It’s kinda cool actually, if you want.”

“Of course, I want it.” But he still felt sort of strange. Like he was encroaching on something private, not made for him. “But it’s your stuff.”

“No,” Peter shook his head, “It was Ben’s stuff. And he doesn’t have any use for it now.”

“Okay.” So, Tony pulled on the shirt.

When May Parker showed up, hair messy and scrubs rumpled, and gave Peter a kiss on the head and squeezed Tony’s elbow. “I hope you like pasta,” she smiled, and it was a tired smile, but it was true and it was there. He saw her eyes flicker to his sweatshirt and then away, and they had a lovely dinner even though May was truly a delightfully terrible cook and the pasta ended up burned and they had peanut butter and jellies anyway.

It was only after the meal, when May and Tony were drinking coffee together and Peter had been sanctioned to his room to do homework (aka “secretly” facetime Ned), that she looked Tony in the eye.

“Peter gave you that?”

“Oh.” Tony felt a blush rise to his cheeks, and briefly marveled at how both the Parkers could somehow consistently catch his charisma off-guard. “Yeah, I got my shirt super dirty and he just loaned it to me, I can give it back though, of course. After I clean it.” And then he thought better. “Or I don’t have to clean it. Whichever is fine.”

But she just met his frantic energy with a gentle smile. “Honestly, Tony, it’s fine. If Peter wanted you to have it, he wanted you to have it.”

But Tony still felt out of place, stilted. “I don’t want you to think I’m trying to be him, or something. That I’m waltzing into your life and wearing your husbands clothes.”

Her smile grew melancholy. “My husband’s dead, Tony. I don’t think he minds who is wearing his clothes.”

“Yes, but,” there was something still tugging at him. “I don’t want you thinking I’m trying to be Peter’s dad or that I’m overstepping my bounds or something.”

She fixed him with a sharper stare. “Who said I thought that?”

They fell silent, and she just reached over and squeezed his hand. Peter rushed out at some point, jabbering away about the newest addition to the Switch Animal Crossing and how him and Ned were planning on going to a LEGO convention. Tony was swept up in a whirlwind of goodbyes and hugs and somehow, he was on his way home and he felt warm and content and _still_inside.

And he was wearing the sweatshirt of a man he had never met and would never meet.

When he made it back to the studio part of his apartment, Pepper was already in bed, reading. He crossed the silent kitchen, and reached up, taking the scrawling _family _script the top tier interior designer had so artfully hung on his wall. Then he pulled off the sweatshirt, folded it neatly, and placed it on the end table instead.

It seemed fitting there.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen, as soon as Tony feels like he's getting the hang of things, I gotta throw him into deeper water, right? Right?? 
> 
> I had a lot of fun writing this one, I wanted to explore Tony's increasing comfort at being a parental figure to Peter coupled with the fact that sometimes there just is no great or tidy way to fix a problem. Hope y'all enjoy, please feel free to comment or keysmash below!

He shouldn’t have let the kid go on the mission in the first place. Bad decision. No contest.

“Peter.” Tony tried to keep his voice steady over the comm. He usually didn’t have mission anxiety, even in tougher situations, because there was a certain kind of charisma to being a hero. When he stepped into his Iron Man suit, he wasn’t Tony Stark of debatably-effective-coping-mechanisms. He was a superhero. So, when Peter had called in a hostage situation happening at a nearby department store, he hadn’t been nervous. He just told the kid he’d be there in a few moments and to hang tight. Unsurprisingly, he hadn’t hung tight. “I thought I told you to get the fuck out of here.”

“Oh, you did.” Peter’s voice was barely above a whisper, and Tony had to strain to see him as he inched along the ceiling of the store. By the time Tony had arrived at the scene, Peter was already inside the building (unsurprising), the hostages had all been knocked out and paralyzed with some sort of aerosol neurotoxin (because of course they were), and the police had formed a barricade outside of the doors, preventing anyone from entering (even though he was _Iron Man _for crying out loud). By the time Tony was relegated to watching the kid from a _window _outside the building, he realized what a dumb decision it had been to let Peter stay on the mission at all (unsurprisingly unsurprising).

“Great. Spectacular. Your ears still work then.” He circled the building again in the suit, flying around to get a better angle as Peter inched along the ceiling. He was nearly above the first of three perpetrators. “Hopefully your legs and arms work as well, so you can _crawl out of the goddamn store._”

“Hold on.” Peter’s response was rushed, and he dropped out of view. Tony made to follow him down to a lower window, but his screen was blocked by an incoming notification.

“FRIDAY, what is this?”

“An invitation to initiate the _Vinyasa Yoga But You Just Lay In Vinyasa For An Hour _Protocol, boss,” the cool voice said over his comm. “Your blood pressure is currently spiking.”

“Get that off my screen,” he snapped, and the notification immediately vanished. “Pete? Kid? You there?”

There was a crackle over the comm, and then Peter scuttled back up the wall. “Okay, sorry. I had to take out that guy without the other ones seeing. What were you saying?” His words had an air of casual nonchalance, dapper indifference, which Tony might have fallen for had he not been the king of “active suave while actually being terrified” himself.

“Kid.” He was done with the quipping, done with the cursing and begging. It was time to be direct. “There’s a bunch of guys with giant guns and neuroweapons pointed at a bunch of hostages. This is not your territory. You need to get out.”

“But it _is _my territory.” Tony held his breath as Peter skittered above another guard. “I’m supposed to help the people of New York.”

“The police have it under control.” This a lie, and they both knew it, but he pressed on, relentless. Peter could not be here right now, he should not be here right now. Tony needed to get him out.

“The police-” Peter cut off once again, disappearing from Tony’s view for a second time. When he came back on the line, Tony still couldn’t see him, and he tried to talk himself down from just busting through the windows and cleaning this thing up himself. Because as much as he wanted to do that, there were many many lives at stake. “The police are outside scratching their heads about how to get past three guards armed with some kind of chemical weapon. And I’ve taken down two of those guards, soon to be three. So, I really think I’m winning.”

Tony closed his eyes, summoning his last weapon. “Kid, I’m asking you. No, I’m begging you. Please. For me. Please get out of there.”

He could feel Peter’s hesitation through the line. “I-”

And then several things happened in close succession:

Peter went silent over the comm. There was a series of yells and thumps. And Tony finally busted through the window.

Amidst the glass shattering and general pandemonium of the still-conscious hostages below, he could make out the third and final guard staggering backwards, webs around his middle. The commotion had caused the cops to stream in from outside, weapons at the ready before they realized it was over, the perpetrators all neatly bound up in spiderwebs.

Tony didn’t hesitate, even as the police looked at each other in confusion. He landed as quickly as possible, staggering forward through the crowd of still paralyzed hostages and an ever-growing number of first responders.

“Peter!” The words were out of his mouth before he could think more clearly, fear overriding sensibility. What was he doing? Stupid, stupid, Iron Man busting in somewhere, calling out Spider-Man’s real name like it was his first day on the job.

But, thank the stars from the black vortex of space, no one blinked twice in his direction, absorbed in the sheer bedlam of it all. He pushed his way gently through the throng of people, eyes still swinging left and right, trying to be courteous to those injured, though he had the feeling he was just coming across curt. He could see the headlines already, “IRON MAN STEPS ON HOSTAGE, BREAKS VICTIMS FOOT.” Deep breaths, deep breaths. “FRIDAY, do we have a visual on Spidey?”

“Spider-Man appears to be behind the column to your left, boss.”

He clanged over there as fast as he could, his heart rate only slowing when he saw Peter leaning against the column. There wasn’t a gunshot wound through his chest, he was still standing, still breathing. Miraculously, no one had died. No one had gotten seriously injured.

“It’s kinda rude you keep putting me in these situations, kid,” he quipped, making his way over to Peter’s side. “You know I have a heart condition.”

Later, when he wasn’t filled with the pure euphoria of somehow having everything turn out okay for _once, _he would work on Peter’s I-have-to-always-save-everyone-all-the-time complex.

“Seriously, though,” he added, because he was babbling now, so be it, “I kind of don’t want to compliment you in case it encourages this kind of reckless behavior, but I’m impressed by your moves. You take Clint up on some of those training sessions?”

But Peter was still just breathing heavily, and he had shifted now, clutching the column.

Tony frowned, moving towards him. “Kid?”

He placed a hand on his shoulder, but Peter just lurched forward, brushing his hand off with a drunken sweep. “I need to get outta here.”

“What?” For a moment, Tony was nothing but bewildered. He caught the kid by his shoulders as he stumbled forward, toes dragging on the ground like he was trying to dance.

“Don’t touch me,” he slurred, reaching up to yank the mask from his face, leaving his hair to curl up at every angle.

There weren’t many people looking back in their secluded corner, but Tony’s blood still ran cold. “Woah, woah, woah,” he helped Peter’s swaying form to the ground, picking the mask up and attempting to press it back into his hands. “What’s going on, huh? Let’s put this back on.”

But Peter gave another shove in his direction, and Tony stumbled backwards, surprised by the force. He usually knew how to hold back his strength.

“FRIDAY, scan Spider-Man for injuries.” He stepped out of the suit, kneeling down so he was on Peter’s level. “And make sure no one can see us.” There was a metallic clinking as the suit unfurled into a shield, blocking the rest of the store from view. At least if the kid wasn’t going to wear the mask, he could be somewhere out of the way.

“Peter appears to be experiencing the effects of the neurotoxin located in the perpetrators weapons,” FRIDAY replied. “He has no other injuries.”

“I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe.” Peter was curling into a ball, knees to chest, holding his head between his hands. “Oh my god, I can’t breathe.”

“You’re okay.” Tony hovered a hand over his back, unsure if a touch would be comforting. “FRI, what kind of neurotoxin are we talking about here?” His mind was flashing through thousands of scenarios, the best ending with Peter smiling up at him and saying it was all a joke, the worst with the kid stopping breathing in front of him, a lifeless corpse.

“This particular strain can cause temporary paralysis and extreme disorientation. It looks to be metabolizing quite quickly in Peter’s bloodstream. The effects should last only a few hours.”

“So they were using the cheap shit.” He didn’t know whether to be comforted or horrified that his kid had only been hit with knockoff street drugs. He placed his hand on Peter’s back, rubbing in what he hoped were soothing circles. He just needed to feel him breathing, to know it was okay. “Listen, kid, it’s going to be alright. Just take deep breaths, it’ll pass.”

“Don’ touch me,” Peter panted, shoving his hand away. His voice was still laced with panic. “I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe.”

Oh god, he was so out of his element it wasn’t even funny. He couldn’t touch him, he couldn’t flush the drugs from his system, he couldn’t do anything but wait. “You’re alright. Listen to me, okay? You got hit with something from that guy’s weapon, but it’s going to wear off, and you’re going to be okay.”

“No, no, I can’t feel my legs.” It was like Peter didn’t even see him, and Tony had no clue what to do, no clue how to talk, no clue how to give comfort. “I can’t feel my legs, I’m scared.”

“It’ll pass,” Tony said, his voice shaking in a way that essentially negated all reassuring qualities to the statement. “It’ll pass. It’s just temporary.”

“No.” And this time Peter’s voice broke, curving into a sob. “I’m scared, I’m scared, I want it to stop.”

“Just take deep breaths.” He felt like a record. An ineffectual, dusty record. And Peter’s eyes were growing even more distant as he swooned sideways, crashing against Tony’s shoulder, mumbling. Okay. He was officially worried now. He tried to imbibe his voice with a more authoritarian, reassuring nature. “Alright, buddy. New plan. We’re going to get moving.”

“No, no,” Peter slurred, whining like a little kid. His forehead shook side to side against Tony’s shoulder. “I want…please.”

Tony was already summoning the suit back over and around him. He didn’t care what FRIDAY had said, he wanted to get the kid somewhere his identity hadn’t been compromised and he could get medical attention if he needed it. “Here, let’s put your mask back on.”

“Mmmm.” Peter pushed his hand away, frown-lines etching themselves on his forehead.

“Just for a second,” Tony promised, moving to pull the mask over his head.

“No!” Peter swiped another hand in his direction, but his face was wavering, crumpling into something Tony didn’t recognize, an emotion he couldn’t place. Peter brought his fingers up before his face, clenching and unclenching fists. “I can’t…my hands are going funny.”

“Okay. Executive decision time.” Tony reached down and scooped the kid up into his arms. “FRIDAY, what’s the most discreet and direct way back to the tower?”

A highlighted route flashed up before him in the suit. Peter was a bundle of limp limbs in his arms, and he tried not to think about what it would feel like to carry his dead body. The kid was still gasping for air, and Tony knew there was no way he was getting the mask on without using force. What should he do? Risk Peter’s identity? Freak the kid out even more?

Maybe this was what being a parent was really like- picking one of two bad options and hoping the one you chose was marginally better than the other.

“Hold on tight, kid,” he whispered down to the bundle in his arms, before pushing the suits thrusters back to the tower as fast as he dared. Luckily, FRIDAY had directed them on a path away from the chaos still happening outside the store.

“FRIDAY, could you send along Peter’s vitals to our friend Bruce?” Tony asked as they landed at the tower’s penthouse suite. He set Peter down on the couch, making sure there were a few pillows propping up his back. The kid had been uncharacteristically quiet the entire flight, and it was unnerving him. Midflight, Peter said feeling was beginning to return to his toes, and while Tony still wanted someone else’s approval, he was trying not to be as concerned.

“I have already sent along Peter’s vitals to Dr. Banner, and he has agreed that Peter’s condition, while uncomfortable, should pass. I will alert him if anything changes.”

“Thanks, FRI.” He hunted for some blankets, watching Peter closely. There was something still off about his eyes. Should he offer him something to eat? A change of clothes so he didn’t have to wear the suit? Maybe that could wait for later, when all his limbs were back in working order. Tony settled on sitting beside him, offering a lame, “You feeling any better?”

He imagined a scene where Peter broke into a big smile, gave Tony a hug, and let him know that he realized it was stupid to take down a squadron of armed men all on his own. To his horror, however, Peter just shook his head slightly, eyes glittering.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, a pit of dread filling his stomach.

Peter shook his head again, taking in a gasping breath.

Then he burst into tears.

“Fuck.”

Tony had never been particularly good with emotions. That was the isolating factor of being a genius; no one ever quite understood you, and that meant you didn’t have to play on their level. Emotions and deep conversations could be side-stepped with the proper quips and sarcastic remarks. It was like a social game of chess, and Tony Stark never lost.

But this, this was different. Because this wasn’t some Senator at a party that Tony could schmooze and sweet-talk and really care less about. This was his kid. This was _Peter._

“Okay.” He took a shaking breath, more to steady himself than anything else. “Are you alright? Are you hurt?”

But Peter wouldn’t or couldn’t respond, and Lord have mercy this kid could sob, it was the whole nine yards, red eyes and snot lips and gasping breaths and everything. Tony was terrified.

“It appears Mr. Parker is not injured,” FRIDAY helpfully supplied. “He just dealing with the effects of the drugs leaving his system.”

“Okay.” Tony felt slightly, marginally, reassured. “See, it’s okay, kid. It’s just the drugs. You’ll be better soon.”

“N-no,” Peter stammered, still shaking his head. There was mucus dripping from a string off his chin. This was bad, this was really bad. Tony was in so far over his head, it wasn’t even funny.

“Here, here,” Tony practically shoved a blanket at him, draping it over his shoulders. “Here, why don’t you get comfortable and-”

“No.” Peter wriggled out of the blanket, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. He was sobbing so hard Tony was struggling to understand him.

“What _do _you want?” Crying children had always made him exceedingly uncomfortable. The only puzzle he couldn’t solve. “I got food. We can, we can watch a movie. I can get different blankets?”

But Peter was shaking his head through all of his, and Tony could no longer tell if he was saying no or just trembling. Peter grabbed the blanket he had discarded earlier, this time scrunching it up so he could bury his face into it, choking something into the fabric.

“What was that?”

But Peter just mumbled it again, his eyes squeezing closed as more tears ran out.

As though he were approaching a wounded animal that could bite, Tony reached forward and pulled the blanket away from his face as Peter rocked back and forth. He was so tired, and so scared. He just wanted to make things better. “Say it again, squirt?”

“I want B-ben,” he was saying, tripping over the words. “My hands still f-f-feel weird, please, please just get him. P-please, I just want him. I need-d him.”

Tony had watched countless people die. He had seen his own weapons cause mass destruction. He had blasted into space towards his own death. But he had never felt so helpless.

“Kid-”

But a sort of whine worked its way up from Peter’s chest, and he gasped harder. “N-no, you, you have t-to, please. I just…” He squeezed his eyes shut so tight Tony almost told him to stop. “I need- I need him.”

Tony had no clue what to do. None of the “Parenting Your Teen” books had included how to comfort a superhero who was also a child carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders. He closed his own eyes, and said the first thing he could think, “I already let him know.”

This quieted Peter’s movement for half a second, and he looked up at Tony for the first time. He still wasn’t all the way there in the eyes, but Tony seized the progress, continuing, “He’s on his way.”

Peter’s breathing calmed down to an almost normal pace, and he hiccupped another sob, “He’s c-coming?”

Dammit. What hole had he dug himself? “Yep. He’s coming as fast as he can.”

Peter’s eyes closed again, and he shook in a paper-thin breath. “I’m so scared. I feel weird. I’m so scared.”

“I know.” Tony reached out a tentative hand, wary of being pushed away. But Peter’s back was warm and solid beneath his fingers, and he rubbed circles along his spine.

“Can I…” Peter’s eyebrows drew together, and he used the blanket to wipe snot off his mouth. “Can I talk to him?”

Think fast, Tony, think fast. “He’s, uh, he’s driving right now.” Though Peter wasn’t lucid enough to see through his obvious lies, he still looked as though he was teetering, so Tony rapidly added, “But he told me to say it’ll all be okay.”

“Oh.” Peter considered this for a moment, before squinting at Tony hopefully. “Did he say anything else?”

Stupid, stupid, Tony hadn’t thought this far ahead. But he had no choice. He closed his eyes and prayed to any god who was there and to Ben Parker if he was listening as well that his words would give Peter some sort of comfort. “He said not to worry, because you know you’ve got people watching your back. You know he’s looking out for you. And you know he loves you, and he’ll give you a hug soon.”

“Oh.” Peter slumped back against the cushions, and Tony was concerned until he realized the panic had left his eyes. He was just scared and exhausted.

Tony, moving ever so slowly and carefully, shifted so he could put an arm around Peter’s shoulders. He was scared the kid would push him away again, but Peter wasn’t paying close attention to Tony, still frowning into the middle distance.

“He really said that?” he whispered, sniffing loudly and wiping his nose against the blanket again. Tony made a mental note to deep clean the couch and all its cushions later.

“Yep.” He sent up another silent prayer that Peter didn’t dig any deeper. He wasn’t sure how long this was going to last, and extra wasn’t sure he could keep up the act for much longer.

But Peter pulled in a stuttering breath, wiping away the last of his tears. “I wish he was here.”

“I know, buddy.” He shifted so Peter was more securely tucked into his side. “But you aren’t alone. You got me.”

The words surprised him, their vulnerability so obvious once said aloud, dangling out there for Peter to shoot down. He wouldn’t blame him if Tony’s presence didn’t bring him comfort, if he wasn’t what or whom Peter needed in this moment. But it still felt…unsteady. He wasn’t used to offering up his heart without a guarantee it wouldn’t get hurt in the process.

But Peter hummed his assent, leaning his cheek over onto Tony’s shoulder. “’m tired.”

“I’m sure you are.” Tony reached over, careful not to jostle Peter as he picked up another discarded blanket. “Here, get cozy.”

“Kay.” The fight seemed to have gone out of the kid as quickly as it had entered him.

“You’ll feel better when you wake up,” Tony promised, helping tuck the blankets around his feet in the way he liked them.

“Kay.” Peter shifted around a bit, yanking the covers up near his face. Tony pretended not to notice as he wiped his snotty nose off onto Tony’s sleeve. His eyes were still a little distant and scared though, as he fumbled with the hem of Tony’s t-shirt. “You’ll stay with me?”

There was something odd and thick about Tony’s voice. “Of course, kid.”

And it was as though this were all the permission Peter needed, because he slumped against Tony’s shoulder and was out like a light, and Tony let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding for the past five hours.

Peter slept for a while, and he looked so peaceful Tony considered doing the same, but he was still too keyed up to think about doing anything remotely close to sleeping. Instead he called May and quietly filled her in on everything and worked on some new upgrades to Peter’s mask that would prevent any airborne toxins from entering. He had a pretty good working design when the kid began to stir, blinking his eyes open slowly.

Tony let him do his thing, pushing up into a seated position with a groan and rubbing aggressively at his eyes. When he stopped, he looked at Tony for a long time with a frown before glancing back down at his feet, still in the suit.

“We can get you changed, if you want,” Tony supplied. “I just didn’t want to move you at first.”

But Peter didn’t respond, still frowning. Tony’s heart beat a little faster.

“Kid? You feeling okay?”

Peter rubbed his eyes again before staring back over at Tony. His voice was scratchy, uncertain. “That was bad, wasn’t it?”

“Well,” Tony quipped, “we started off the day with a bunch of hostages in a department store, so things were looking kinda bleak from the start.” What if the kid was still looking for Ben? Even worse, what if he realized Tony had lied to him, had blatantly put words in his late father figure’s mouth? What if-

“Thank you.” And suddenly, Peter’s arms were around his neck, and Tony didn’t remember ever doing this before, didn’t remember hugging without a reason, without one of them being gravely ill or injured. And though Tony couldn’t remember a time he hadn’t overthought something in his life, there was something so simple and natural about wrapping his arms back around the kid and squeezing him as tight as he thought advisable for someone who had just been drugged up the wazoo.

“Come on.” Tony was only slightly embarrassed to hear his own choked up voice, quickly clearing his throat. “You should go change. Otherwise you’ll have the imprint of those spiderwebs on your body forever.”

They pulled away and Peter stretched, throwing Tony a tentative grin. “That might be kind of cool, actually”

“You’re impossible.”

And though Tony watched Peter carefully as he snarfed down a meal and then promptly crashed back to sleep for several hours, the kid gave no indication that he begrudged Tony for what he had said, or even if he remembered what happened. It was only later, when the two of them were kicked back on the couch, making their way through the seven pizzas Tony had ordered, that he caught Peter staring at him.

“You still good?” he asked, reaching over and rubbing a hand over Peter’s shoulder.

This was dangerous territory. Physical or emotional displays of affection were usually not allowed at this point past the danger zone.

But Peter just leaned slightly into his hand, letting out a long breath. He was still a little pale, and the light wasn’t all the way back into his eyes, but his mouth twitched into the semblance of a smile. “Yeah, I’m still good.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *peep the tiniest ffh reference*

It had been a good day.

A good day to top off a good week. He’d only had to yell at his lawyers once about Captain America’s star spangled ass (win), he’d managed to corral Peter into sleeping over at the tower for the weekend _and _had coerced the kid to sleep more than three hours a night (major win), and he’d gotten the massage therapist he had on retainer to come and do a bonus session for both him and Peter (perhaps the biggest win of them all).

Things were…normal. Or as normal as they ever would be. Maybe he was beginning to get the hang of this whole ‘caring for a teenager’ thing.

He knew to stock the fridge with those weird squeezy applesauce pouches (mango flavored only), he knew to keep the lab at a certain temperature (just cold enough to wear sweatshirts), and he knew the best way to destress after a long day (All Cup on Mario Kart).

The emotional stuff…well, he was getting better. If he were being honest, he was grateful it was still mostly dealt with by May. Tony relished his role of being shiny, new, exciting; nothing beat the kid’s face when he asked him to stay the weekend. He was taking baby steps forward, easing into a sort of comfort with this new phase in life. And it was pretty enjoyable.

He tried not to indulge the kid too much, but it was hard not to. Peter was just so damn _likeable_. Tony had never met someone so incredibly hopeful and curious about the world. It was addictive; this wanting to please him, to keep the wonder in his eyes. He would do anything to see Peter smile.

So, sure, maybe it hadn’t been the _best _idea to let Peter take one of the Audis he’d been tinkering with out for a spin to their favorite ice cream place, but Tony really couldn’t help himself. Plus, the kid needed the hours. He’d already had his permit for a few months, but two Parkers in the one car was a terrible combination.

“It’s like we get in and she’s already nervous. I can feel it, I can _hear_ her heart thumping away in her chest, but she insists she’s cool as a cucumber,” Peter said as they idled at a red light. “So that just sets me on edge, right? And so then I’m nervous, and I’m still learning, but she’s gripping the side of the car like the world’s about to end or something.” The light turned green and they accelerated, merging onto a highway. “And so like…” He trailed off, and his head twitched towards Tony, who was fiddling with one of the colored lights in the door. “Is something wrong?”

“Yeah, I’m just trying to get this light to be the right color. It should be programmed to blue, but-”

His breath. Gone. The car swerving, screaming.

Into one lane, back out the other.

Peter, Peter, Peter, yelling.

Horns yelling, blaring distaste. Left, right, back again.

Blink. Breathe. Breathe.

Where are you Tony?

He was on the side of the highway. The car was intact. Peter was

Peter was gone.

“Kid!”

Peter running. Six lanes of New York traffic. Cars cars cars and a boy.

Fumbling fingers. Come on, come on. Undo the seatbelt. Come onnnnn.

Deep breaths. He could handle stress. He couldn’t handle the kid getting hit, smashed to pieces on a New York highway.

Tires screaming. He should call the suit, he would call the suit and blast them away from here and-

Peter.

Back at the car. Windswept, pale.

Not smashed to smithereens.

A voice. His voice. “Get back in the car.”

“Okay.” Okay. Peter was okay. He was okay. Everything was okay. “But can you take the turtle?”

What.

“The turtle.” Peter held out a black and yellow shelled reptile.

“I-” He took the turtle. Its legs scrambled around in midair, like it was swimming through oxygen.

Peter slammed the door shut. The car was silent. Peter, Tony, and a turtle. Peter did that weird staring thing where it felt like Tony was supposed to read his mind. He didn’t have a damned clue as to what had just happened.

Peter looked at the turtle, back at Tony.

“What?”

The kid immediately flushed. “I mean…I just didn’t know if you wanted to drive or if…?”

Deep breaths, deep breaths. He was holding a turtle. Everything was okay. “FRIDAY, could you engage auto-drive? I’ll type in the coordinates.”

“Sure thing, boss.”

He had been waiting to show Peter auto-drive for a time when they could both properly geek out with it together, but it seemed fitting to use it now. He wasn’t sure why, but his hands had begun to tremble violently, even as his thoughts were becoming more coherent. The turtle rattled up and down in its shell.

Peter frowned at the console screen. “Where are we going? Those aren’t the coordinates for the tower.”

“I wanted someplace hospitable for our friend here to be set free.” Tony fixed him with a look. “That was the goal of your whole death mission there, wasn’t it?”

The tips of Peter’s ears flushed maroon. “Yeah.”

It was only a ten-minute drive to a small nature reserve. Peter didn’t talk throughout the trip. Tony reached for words, tried to gather all the fragments swirling around into a coherent thought, but found he could barely string together a sentence. He should say something. He needed to say something. They had both nearly gotten hurt, if not killed. And he wanted to say he was surprised the kid would nearly smash the car to swerve around a turtle, but he wasn’t. He wanted to believe the kid wouldn’t rush out into traffic again to grab said turtle, but he knew he would.

Once the car was parked and they both had gotten out, Tony gave the turtle back to Peter. “Careful, his claws are sharp.”

“Thanks.” Peter was quiet, uncharacteristically unreadable. His shoulders and neck were struck with tension, and it would have been easy to guess he was just shaken up. But there was a certain lilt to his head, a certain uneasiness to his step that suggested something more. Tony just didn’t know what.

He followed Peter down the path to a whistling stream, where water swept lazily over rocks. The kid set the turtle down carefully on the bank, and the pair of them stood for a moment, watching the animal slowly peek its head out and take a few tentative steps forward.

“He’s scared of walking out to the water, but he was trying to cross a highway earlier.” Peter shook his head. “He doesn’t even know.”

This was it, this was Tony’s chance. He needed to say something. “But you know. Right?”

Peter’s head whipped towards him, eyes guarded. “Know what?”

“Know what you did was extremely dangerous.”

His face softened slightly, crumpling. “I’m sorry, I really didn’t mean to, but I wasn’t thinking, and I know it was stupid, but-”

“Listen,” Tony reached out to rub a hand on his shoulder, feel the tension begin to dissipate, “it’s okay. We all make mistakes sometimes. I just want to make sure you understand the gravity of your actions.” See, he was doing great. He was going to let the kid know he was loved, but also ensure he knew what to do in hard situations. “You’re not a bad driver, Pete. Far from it. But if you see a turtle on the highway again, and there’s no way to swerve around it, you know what you have to do, right?”

“Yeah, that was stupid of me.” The kid’s face was clearing as well, and he leaned into Tony’s touch. He was getting it, he was understanding, Tony was doing it. He was being a parent. “Next time, I’ll pay better attention to my instincts, and stop a safer distance from the turtle so I won’t have to swerve.”

Wait. “What?”

Peter’s eyes tracked the turtle picking its way across the grass. “It was stupid. Swerving like that and then running back out in front of traffic. I should have thought of a better way. That’s what Spider-Man would have done.”

“No.” This was wrong, this was all wrong. “No, no, no. That’s not what I’m saying at all. If you _ever_ see that happen again, you run that turtle over.”

Peter’s head snapped up, eyes locking on Tony. “What?”

“Listen,” he would show him he could be reasonable, show him how to assess danger, “if you are in a position to avoid hitting an animal, of course you do. I’m a thousand percent behind Peter Parker, animal rescue extraordinaire. But if you’re on a busy highway, and the chances of you injuring others or, god forbid, _yourself,_ are as high as they were today, you hit that turtle.”

Peter took a stumbling step backwards, sliding Tony’s hand off his shoulder. The tension was back in his neck. “I already said I was sorry.”

“Sorry doesn’t cut it.” And for the first time since Tony had looked up and saw the car screeching across traffic, he felt fear, hot sticky fear, seep through his chest. “I’m not looking for sorry. You already apologized, and I said it was alright. I’m looking, as someone who is allowing you to drive out on the road, for the knowledge that recklessly swerving to save the life of a _turtle_ is not okay.”

“Every life is important.” Peter looked ready to cry, but there was an edge in his eyes, something Tony didn’t recognize, didn’t understand. “Especially those who can’t protect themselves.”

“_Your _life is important kid.” Tony’s hands were shaking again. What was going wrong? What was he saying wrong? “What about that don’t you understand?”

“I made the decision to go out and rescue the turtle. He needed me.”

It was okay. This was okay. Tony could use logic. “You made the decision not only to put your own life in danger, but also mine and the people driving around you.”

Peter’s face flushed deeper, and he mumbled something under his breath, kicking at the grass.

“What was that?” And the words came out so much harsher than he intended, but fear was pounding like acid through his veins and he _needed_ Peter to understand this, _needed_ this to click.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“No, please share.” Because he was done with pussyfooting around, he was done with the set of Peter’s shoulders, unwilling to listen, he was done with the turtle still picking its way across the bank.

Peter squinted in his direction. “You don’t seem to have a problem when I’m risking my life as Spider-Man.”

He was trying to hit him where it hurt. “Oh, kid. You have no idea how much of a problem I have with Spider-Man.” Tony wouldn’t rise to the bait.

But this didn’t deter him. “Even if I got hit by a car, I probably could have survived.”

“You know, you could probably get hit by a train and survive, but that doesn’t mean I want to test that theory!” He felt it, he felt the situation spiraling out of his control, felt Peter fading away from him, though he wasn’t sure where he had gone wrong.

“Whatever.” It was such a teenage response, so blasé, so unlike Peter, that Tony felt the sticky mess of anxiety flash through him again, hot and ready.

“Woah, woah, woah, we aren’t done here.” He crossed his arms. “We aren’t leaving until you promise not to pull something like that again. We can even compromise.” See. He could be reasonable. “If there is a _viable_ situation to do your Spider-Man savior thing, you do it. But if it’s too dangerous, you hit the turtle, you feel bad, and I’ll give you a hug and tell you there’s nothing you could have done.”

“No,” Peter’s voice was changing, gathering conviction, growing in volume. “No, you’re wrong. I have the power to save everyone I can. It’s my duty. No one’s life is worth more or less than others.”

Something bubbled up inside of Tony and he laughed, he actually laughed. “Do you realize how ridiculous you’re sounding right now? Everyone’s life is worth the same until I hit someone with my car while saving a reptile?”

He hoped the logic would allow Peter to snap out of it, to see that this situation had turned out okay, but it still hadn’t been the best choice. But Peter was shaking his head, eyes wide. “I’m just trying to do what’s right. I know…I know what’s right.”

“Kid, I’m the adult here.” And he was. He was the adult, and he needed to show Peter what was right. Needed to show him how to keep others safe. How to keep himself safe. “I know this world, and sometimes it fucking sucks. Sometimes, you gotta smash the turtle, and it’s the worst thing ever. That’s what I want you to know. You get all these grandiose ideas in your head-”

“They aren’t grandiose.” Peter’s face was growing splotchy, and Tony’s own sixth sense was tingling. He was pressing hard, he knew, but he couldn’t let this go, he couldn’t.

“They _are_ grandiose. They are. You need to let some things go.”

“No.” Peter’s voice sounded odd, and he turned away, leaving his back to Tony. “I won’t. I can’t.”

“Listen to me.” But he had to tell him this, he had to get him to listen, it was so important. “Turn around and listen to me for just a second.”

“No.” His voice was sharp edged.

But Tony could be sharp edged too. “Peter Parker, turn around right now.”

“Just stop!” Peter whipped around, and Tony was shocked to see tears glittering in his eyes. “Just stop, stop, stop! You’re not my parent! You’re not my dad! Stop trying to be one! Stop trying to live up to ghosts!”

There was a long huff of air. Like a balloon had just deflated inside of his chest.

“I’ve already had people raise me. And they taught me what was right and wrong. So I don’t need you.” Peter raised a shaking finger. “I don’t need you trying to tell me what they said was wrong. I take care and watch over everybody. _No _exceptions.”

He had been knocked off-kilter.

_I wasn’t trying to live up to ghosts_. The words rose to his lips, but he found he couldn’t speak. (_Because you _were_ trying to trump a ghost_, some voice inside him whispered. _You can’t speak because you know you’d be a liar_.)

Another breath, and Peter crumpled, crying into his hands. In another life, Tony would have gone and comforted him, rubbed his back. But he couldn’t move, rooted to the spot.

“I’m sorry.” Peter looked up at him, shattered. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

He did, he did, he did.

Some detached part of Tony spoke, “I understand.”

“I just,” Peter made to take a step towards him, then thought better of it, sighing deeply. He was scrubbing his face so hard it must have been painful. “It’s just, Ben always said-”

“It’s okay.” His voice sounded like a robot, and all Tony could think of in that moment was how a real father would never feel this detached. Foolish, foolish, how could he screw up like this, he never screwed up this bad.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry for all of this,” Peter was blubbering now, and Tony felt some shriveled up part of him preening, because he couldn’t even muster the strength to go and comfort his kid. “I didn’t mean to swerve. I shouldn’t have done it. I know. I’m sorry.”

“Let’s just go.”

He looked up with those brown eyes still shimmering with tears, and Tony felt some falling sensation deep in his chest. Swooping. An emotion tumbling, waiting for impact.

“Okay.” A whispered confession, like he was praying.

Tony turned and walked back to the car, Peter trailing behind him. He’d already typed in the coordinates by the time Peter clambered in the backseat, and it wasn’t until they were turning left out of the park that Peter frowned.

“Weren’t we supposed to go right?”

“I was taking you home,” Tony told him. “I thought that’s what you would have wanted.”

Home. Back to his aunt, his family, his parent.

“Oh.” Peter’s voice was different, impossible to read. “Okay.”

“Is that what you want?” Tony shifted in his seat to get a better look at him.

Peter shrugged. “Is that what _you_ want?”

What did Tony Stark want?

He could think of a million and one things. He wanted the imminent threat of universal destruction gone, he wanted innovation to better the planet as a whole, he wanted a cheeseburger, he wanted home, he wanted family, he wanted this whole damned conversation to have never happened.

He wanted one thing.

“I want you to be happy.”

Peter pursed his lips, looking out the window. He was quiet a long moment, and when he spoke again, it was just a whisper. “I didn’t mean to mess things up.”

“Me neither.”

He sighed again. A heavy sigh. A long silence stretched between them, punctuated only by the occasional blaring music and honking as they re-entered the city. Before long, the car was idling in front of Peter’s building.

Tony cleared his throat. “I can…I can get FRIDAY to send your things back to you. It won’t take long.”

“No.” Peter shook his head. “No, wait. Could you come in for a minute?”

Tony hesitated. He had already screwed up so much today already. If he couldn’t read his next move, if he couldn’t anticipate, couldn’t plan out what to say, what else could go wrong? “Are you sure?”

But Peter nodded, pulling open Tony’s door.

So, though he wasn’t entirely sure why, Tony ended up following the kid back to the apartment, even though they had to take the stairs because the elevator was perpetually stuck on the seventh floor. The Parker’s home was empty when they got back, silent in a lived-in sort of way, the kind of room just waiting to be re-inhabited.

Peter didn’t turn on any light switches, nimbly finding his way through the dark rooms and leaving Tony to stub his toe on the kitchen table and curse silently. “Wait here,” he directed, disappearing into his room before returning with a frame, which he pressed into Tony’s hands.

It was a picture of a man and a woman, both of whom Tony did not recognize. It appeared to be their wedding day, and they were smiling, faces full of laughter as they cut into a three-tiered cake. The apartment was dim enough it was a struggle to make out more than the most basic details.

“Those are my mother and father.” Peter’s voice was quiet, hushed. He shifted from side to side. “My biological ones. There are pictures of them with me, but I picked that one out for my room when I was younger. I think I liked how my mom was smiling.”

If Tony squinted, he could see the resemblance. Maybe Peter had his mother’s dimples, his father’s lips.

Peter’s voice changed slightly. “I don’t really remember them. There are some things, sometimes. Flashes. But I don’t know if they’re real memories or ones I made up. This picture, I swear I remember what that wedding cake tasted like.” A long pause. He swallowed. “But that can’t be true. So sometimes I wonder what else I’m imagining. If I ever really knew them at all.”

He fixed Tony with a steady stare. “If I’m being honest, May and Ben are my parents in all the ways that count. It’s not that my mother didn’t help raise me, but I don’t miss her.” He took a breath. “I miss Ben.”

“Kid-” Tony started, because he didn’t need Peter to rescue his feelings, he shouldn’t need validation from a teenager, he should step up, he should let Peter know that he overstepped his bounds and was stupid to think this would even work in the first place.

“No. Just wait.” And so, despite the voice in his head screaming to be a better parent/co-parent/father figure/mentor/mess, Tony waited. And he listened. “I miss Ben, and sometimes that makes things hard. I want to live the way he lived, want to do things that would make him proud.” Peter’s voice was careful, thoughtful as he picked his next words. “I shouldn’t have said that to you today. It was wrong. And I knew it was wrong. It’s just…” he looked back down at his smiling parents, “with my mother and father, I didn’t feel like May and Ben were filling the void. I didn’t feel like there was a hole that needed to be fixed. But with Ben…”

“I stepped too far.”

And suddenly his worst fear was out there. And he hadn’t realized it until he had spoken the words out loud, hadn’t realized that though he was terrified of messing up, though he was terrified of being rejected, though he was terrified of sounding like his father and truly screwing the pooch, Tony was most terrified of not being enough. Of trying to fill the shoes of a ghost and being told he was several sizes too small. Never worthy.

Never loved.

But Peter stepped forward, and his hand covered Tony’s own. They were soft. And warm. “No. I was just scared and stupid, and I knew I had screwed up. And I wanted a justification. If I’m being honest, I’m pretty sure Ben would tell me you were right. And that I shouldn’t try and push you away. Even if I do want to save the turtles.”

Something feebly glowed inside of Tony, dissipating the anxiety for the first time in several hours. “I’m not trying to replace him.”

Peter studied him for an uncomfortably long time, before saying, his voice low and husky. “I know.”

“I just want you to be safe.”

“I know,” Peter nodded. “He would want that too.”

Tony took a breath, took a chance. “Do you think he would like me?”

“Maybe.” Peter’s face quirked into a half-smile, and he looked Tony up and down, considering. “Once he saw you without the sunglasses and a fancy suit.”

Tony could take it. He could take it. It was the small victories, the small wins. The warmth of this moment, the glow in Peter’s eyes, the promise of future laughter. “Do you want to tell me about him?”

Peter looked taken aback for a moment. “Do you want to stay?”

The tension wasn’t completely gone. Neither was the fear, the anxieties, the doubts. The overwhelming sense of never being good enough. The crushing knowledge that, though he may try, there was no way he could ever do this perfectly. But Peter gave him a sense of quiet, of calm. And he owed it to Ben Parker to look out for his kid, however flawed the road.

So, Tony set his sunglasses down on the counter, letting a breath it felt like he had been holding for hours. “Of course I do. Always.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was one of the trickiest chapters for me to write yet, so I hope it translates well. I wanted to balance the childlike irrational desire we prob all have (to save the stupid turtle) with the logic and fear of a parent. Throw in the fact that Tony suffers ~angst~ over parenting and Peter wants desperately to do his uncle proud and we had a great situation for a conflict.
> 
> It was tricky to write because there were so many directions to go. I almost ended the story w Peter getting dropped off and neither of them getting any resolution :) But ultimately it seemed more realistic for them to realize both their reactions were driven by fear. Tony's fear of losing Peter (and his fear of being a guiding figure in Peter's life) and Peter's fear of losing Ben.
> 
> ANYWAY, I apologize for rambling. Pls let me know if you liked it, even if you just need to scream in the comments. I promise it is much appreciated! <3 see you next week for another chapter, it's gonna be a doozy ;)


	5. Chapter 5

Here was a list of things Tony Stark knew:

He was a man made of iron.

One day, he would die in a suit of red and gold.

There were aliens.

There were gods more powerful than he could ever hope to be.

He was an inventor.

There weren’t enough inventions to fix this.

He would try anyway.

He was a man of iron.

He needed to be so much more.

Tony Stark knew one more thing, but he didn’t say it out loud. Not to anyone. Not to himself.

When it was silent, he knew.

The burden of genius: to be blessed with knowledge, cursed with knowledge.

Baby antelopes shuddered shaking breaths into savannah dust only to have their necks snapped by lions. A crack formed in the foundation of one concrete slab only for the entire building to crumble. Flowers opened virginal blooms to be trampled under the feet of deer. It was all so fragile. It was all so immutable. To be snapped, crushed, trampled, crumbled.

He was just a man.

He would become unshakable. Unmovable. It was more than destiny.

It was duty.

Despite the snapping, despite the crumbling and trampling and crushing, the world still hoped. The baby antelope still played. Cities were built to crumble. The flowers bloomed. The earth kept spinning because it didn’t care, it didn’t care, it didn’t care.

The humans. They cared.

They cared about the fresh blossoms, they cared about their babies. About scraped knees and macaroni drawings, pimples and first kisses and school dances. About the dirty looks and the sassy remarks and the rare, beautiful smiles. Tony loved the smiles most of all. The stolen laughs, even when they were trying to be coy, be angry. The cheeky grins after some foolish joke. And, best of all, the wonder-filled gasp, the eyes full of amazement.

Humans, they kept caring and living and loving, despite it all. Only he understood what seemed so tenderly, terribly obvious.

Here was another thing Tony Stark knew:

To experience love was just to experience pain.

And there it was again, in the silence, elusive truth. He knew. The last thing. He knew. He knewheknewheknew.

But he couldn’t speak it. Wouldn’t think it.

He was as stupid as the antelope, as stoic as the crumbling concrete, naïve as the lilac blossom, reaching fruitlessly to a sunlight he would never see.

No.

No.

He was better. He couldn’t have failed. He had known this was coming, he had foreseen this moment, lived it already in a thousand past lives, a thousand nightmares, he was smarter, he could have won, he should have won. Should have slipped the glove off. Should have stopped Thanos from coming in the first place-

Hands.

Peter’s face, swimming before his own.

Oh.

He had forgotten he was dying.

The kid tugged him to his feet, one hand in his own, the other behind his back. Everything was so crisp, so real. The odd, hazy orange of Titan. His body, fighting for survival. He could feel it, feel the very essence of _aliveness_ in a way he never had before, not even in the cave all those years ago. Felt cells struggling against the wound on his side, felt blood oozing down his ribs, life force leeching out. Felt Peter’s hands, grasped tight around his own, too hard, too strong. Felt Peter’s bones, pressing through his muscle. Connected, two humans. Two aliens on a planet lightyears away from home.

What had he done.

He couldn’t have lost.

The ragtag group around them looked confused. Mildly disconcerted. They weren’t cursed with knowledge. Only the girl with antennae squinted, her whisper barely carrying across the dirt. “Something’s happening.”

Tony lurched forward, stupidly ready to fight. Ready to accept he was wrong, there was some imminent threat to take care of. Ready to call what was left of his armor and punch the shit out of whatever dared cross their paths. Because that would help- to hit something real. To solve the equation, even if he lost. Because at least then he could try, he could fight.

The girl turned to dust.

No.

She had been wrong before.

Something wasn’t happening. Something had happened. Tony, Tony, you know what happened, you know what-

No.

He could still stop it. He could stop it, he could find out how, he had to, this was his duty-

There was a certain shocking stillness when the big man crumbled.

An overpowering finality to the moment. The booming sort of quiet that whispered. Something’s here. Something much bigger than you is here. Look at the beauty in this destruction. So clean, so bloodless. Just there and gone. No.

He had-

No. No.

He couldn’t have known. This wasn’t it. This wasn’t the end. This couldn’t be.

Quill’s face was a wreck. Tony could save him. He needed him. He needed all of them to fix this. “Steady, Quill.” He imbued his words with every ounce of Tony Stark, every bit of self-assured, quick-witted playboy he could muster from what parts of him weren’t actively leaking out of his side. It had to be enough.

“Oh man.”

The wind took Quill.

Tony had lost, he had-

No.

He would feel no panic. Only what was here. The heat of Titan. The blood on his ribs. His heart, squeezing what was left of him out like a dirty sponge. Every beat, a silent desperation, a silent prayer. This wasn’t it. This wasn’t the end.

“Tony.”

Strange could fix this. He could tell Tony what to do, how to transport what was left of Iron Man right into the lap of Thanos so he could shove a knife right through his heart.

But Strange had knowledge in his eyes too, and it was a burdensome knowledge. Like he knew what Tony didn’t- a mentor disappointed their prodigy hadn’t caught on more quickly. “There was no other way.”

Then they must have won, they must have, that must be the knowledge, he must have fixed it all, he must have made it all okay, he must have-

There was nothing left of Strange but his cape.

“Mr. Stark.”

Peter. _Peter_.

There was knowledge in his kid’s eyes.

Do you see the whole world before you die?

There were two last things Tony Stark knew:

The first was what he had known all along. Thanos had won. Half the world was dying. Tony had failed each and every one of them.

The second was stickier, uglier.

“I don’t feel so good.”

He saw the world in Peter’s eyes. Shining and spinning and galloping away.

There was an aching deep inside his chest. A wailing, screaming child. A cold, sinister voice. You know. You know.

“You’re alright.” He could say so. He could make it true. He was an inventor; he was a genius. He breathed into machines and they came _alive._ He built himself out of shrapnel and dirt in a cave in the desert. He was immutable, unchangeable. He could not be broken in this way.

“I…I don’t know what’s happening.” Peter staggered forward, eyes wide, wide with knowledge, bleeding into Tony. Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me I’m wrong.

You know, Tony Stark. You know what’s happening. Tell him. Tell him.

Peter fell, hard. Arms grasping. And it hurt to hold him, it hurt it hurt it hurt, Peter was grabbing him too tight and Tony was so fragile, so breakable, why had it taken him until this moment to realize how easily he could be crushed. “I don’t want to go.”

You’re here. This is it. What do you have to say for yourself?

“I don’t want to go, Mr. Stark.”

You’re here, and he’s dying, and you’ve failed.

“Please, please, I don’t want to go.”

Then don’t.

They fell into the dirt. Hard. Tony couldn’t hold onto him, couldn’t give him a soft landing, and he was slipping away, and this is your chance, Tony Stark. This is your chance to say something, to change it all, your chance to step up for once in your life, to have a heart.

But it was the kid who spoke, the kid who shuddered into the dirt. “I’m sorry.”

When Peter Parker died, he disintegrated into dust on a planet called Titan, in a man’s arms who should have stopped it all along. He died knowing what Tony would never know. Knowing what Tony had known all along.

That final, sticky truth.

He would fail everyone. He would fail them time and time again. He would fail the antelopes and he would fail the buildings and he would fail the lilac blossoms. He would fail the team working with him; he would fail the world. But most of all he would fail the kid with freckles and a dopey smile who liked his mac and cheese with ketchup and his lasagna for breakfast, who chewed his eraser to bits while working on incredibly complex chemistry equations, who refused to wear anything but a continuous wardrobe of science pun t-shirts, who woke up each morning and decided to save the world because it was his duty.

And Tony had nothing for him in his final moments. Nothing.

He cradled things in his hands. He crushed things in his hands, until they were nothing but dust.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :,) you didn't think we could escape this w/o any angst, did you??
> 
> I remember when I first really got into reading Spidey fic right after IW and this scene was EVERYWHERE. I wanted to try my own hand at writing this moment, and it's definitely more stylized than previous chapters- I figured at this point we've already watched/read/experienced this moment many times, so I really wanted to dig into just what watching people around you turn to dust would feel like, specifically through the frame of Tony/parenting. Hopefully that came across okay.
> 
> If you enjoyed, feel free to leave a comment (anything from a novel to a keysmash is acceptable in response :) ). Next week I'll be back w/the final installation which is the +1. Thanks, as always, for reading!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is endgame compliant (sort of??? mostly???) if you're not into that sort of thing. kinda sad, take care of yourself.

He opened his eyes. He was driving a car.

It was old. A Ford pick-up truck whose model was years and years past. Maybe something he’d bought in an alternate life. The crumpled bags of fast food and scattered crumbs would have never flown in Howard and Maria Stark’s household. And, for that matter, they hadn’t flown in his either. He didn’t remember wanting a beat-up pick-up. But here he was.

The truck creaked and rumbled. Two magnadoodles littered the backseat, one of them sporting a shaky smiley face, the other a heart with the words “I love you!” scrawled inside. A tacky looking sunflower sat on the dash, the kind of cheap gas station knick-knack that bobbed back and forth in the sunlight. A colorful grouping of friendship bracelets wove themselves around the rearview mirror.

The windows were cracked open, and warm summer air whistled in, rustling the fast food bags near his feet. Outside, cornfields flew past, miles and miles and miles. It was as though he could see the edge of the earth. It was as though he could see nothing at all. He had never been somewhere like this before. How had he been everywhere but here?

The car smelled. Maybe someone had spilled coffee on the passenger’s seat, a wet dog had shaken off in the back, the kids had left orange juice baking in a cup in the door for a few weeks and it had interacted with the sun and heat in some interesting way. He didn’t mind the smell. It whispered of late-night food runs and trips to Grandma’s and Sunday baseball games and some kind of life he had never lived, never even wished for himself because he hadn’t known he could wish it.

The corn whisked by, skittering in the breeze. He didn’t remember pressing down on the accelerator, but he must have been holding some constant speed, because he was trucking, trucking along.

He wondered where he was going.

An aching sadness loomed inside, rearing up and threatening to swallow him. The enormity and swiftness of it all made him swerve, notice his hands clutched around the wheel for the first time. The backseat, the magnadoodles…did he have kids? Had he forgotten them somewhere?

How could he forget his kids?

The truck spluttered a great heave, and several lights blinked on the dash. An exit loomed out of nowhere, the first sign he’d seen on the highway.

Had he failed his kids?

The car gasped again, shuddering dramatically before quieting. The engine had died. He was on a downhill slope though, and he still had momentum, enough momentum to tug the truck off the highway, off the exit.

Where was he?

He was at the gas station, guiding the truck next to a pump, stepping outside. The air was warm, not hot, and it was though there was something greater to it all. Something crisp and soft and vital. Something thumped in his chest, and it wasn’t his heart. It was though he wasn’t fully human. Had his chest ever glowed?

“Need some help?”

A man leaned up against the hood of his truck. There was an ease to his stature, tall and broad, immoveable. He was in coveralls, dirty coveralls, and thick work-boots, and his face was weathered in a crumpled, soft sort of way. But despite his impressive aura, the man was younger than he had first imagined; a curious innocence to the mess of curls, the steady brown eyes, a quiet, intelligent gaze.

The stranger ran a hand through his hair, waiting.

His breath caught in his throat, though he wasn’t sure why.

“I was wondering when you were going to pass through.” The man seemed unbothered he hadn’t answered the previous question. “Figured it was only a matter of time.”

How long had he been on the road? Something ached in his bones, flashed through his head, a migraine at superspeed. He watched a spider limber up the side of a gas pump. It paused before swan-diving down, connecting the nozzle to the credit card reader with a translucent silken thread.

“Have you brought anyone with you?”

He noticed the practiced nonchalance to the stranger’s tone, noticed his wandering eyes as the man searched the back of the truck.

“No,” he answered, before realizing he hadn’t ever looked in the backseat, hadn’t seen if he’d forgotten his kids or not. “Well. I don’t think so.”

“No.” The man deflated some, but he couldn’t distinguish if it was from relief or grief. Or something in-between. “I don’t think so either.”

“Excuse me.” The wind caught the spider web, ripping it away from the pump. There was something opening back up inside of him, something terrible and scary, black and endless. Final. The spider skittled back up the nozzle. “Do you know who I am?”

“Of course.” The man scrutinized him with those brown eyes, but his voice was gentle. “You’re Tony Stark.”

Yes. Yes, he was.

What did that mean?

“You know,” the man kicked at the dirt with his boot, “I didn’t think I’d see you here.”

“You said you knew I’d pass through.”

A shadow from the gas pump fell over the man’s face, cutting a line diagonally from his eye to his lips. His brow was furrowed. “I didn’t know you’d stay.”

Tony Stark. He tried out the words on his lips. Did those words carry meaning here? “I think…I think I’m looking for something?”

“Yeah?” The man’s eyes glittered as the sunlight strobed across them, a dizzying blend of browns and greens. He knew those eyes.

“My…” Tony tested out the words bubbling in his mouth, “My kids.”

The man’s expression softened. He rapped the hood of Tony’s dead truck, a hollow sound ringing out. “When did you last have them?”

“I don’t…I’m not sure.” Because as hard as he tried, he couldn’t bring a mental picture to mind, couldn’t hold them in his hands, they were as certain as water slipping through his fingers, there and gone at the same time. “Maybe I’m driving to meet them somewhere?”

“No.” And they both watched the spider crawling, crawling up the side of the truck, into the open window. “I don’t think you are.”

This was said with solemn finality, a certainty Tony couldn’t argue with. But that swelling inside, _loneliness_, relentless and acidic- “Then what am I doing here?”

He didn’t even know where here was. He didn’t even know who he was.

The man leaned deeper into the car and it groaned beneath him. He blew out a long breath, and then leveled Tony with that gaze again. The man had an air of forbiddance, and his stature was certainly imposing, but there was still a certain softness to the lilt of his shoulders, to the furrow of his brow. So unfamiliarly familiar. Finally, “I could help you fix the car. If you wanted.”

“I…” Tony surveyed the car. Surveyed the man. “Sure. Yeah. If that’s alright with you.”

Had he once had a way with words? Now they seemed to fall clumsy, uncertain, from his lips.

“You got any jumper cables?”

He kept the jumper cables in the backseat. Right next to the stash of organic blue chips the kids liked. He could see them so clearly in his mind, though he was certain he had never owned this car, nor placed jumper cables in the backseat.

There, between a well-loved car seat and a bag of chips, were two jumper cables, just as he had seen. But as he reached for them, his hand brushed up against something else, a ratty, over-large sweatshirt with some volunteer 5k emblazoned on the front. He pulled this from the car.

The man didn’t raise an eyebrow as Tony returned, still leaning against the car, cigarette between his lips, smoke swirling lazily from his mouth.

“I tried to stop,” he said, because Tony had grabbed the sweatshirt and forgotten how to speak, “for the kid, you know. It wouldn’t have been a good example but,” his shrug suggested nonchalance, but there something lingered in his eyes, “old habits die hard, I guess.”

Tony frowned, looking between the man and the sweatshirt, the sweatshirt and the man. The fabric itched in his fingers.

The man offered him a box of cigarettes. “You want a smoke?”

“Is this your sweatshirt?”

He finally pushed off the hood of the car, the entire truck exhaling in response, and made his way to Tony, to the sweatshirt. He took another long drag as he surveyed the item, a melancholy smile crossing his lips. “I never even liked that sweatshirt much. I just wore it to do housework. Didn’t think it’d become some great memento.”

Tony watched the smoke swirl across the cornfields. The wind roared by, so loud and sudden it made him jump. There was an eerie crying sound as it whistled through the pumps, and Tony looked over his shoulder, convinced, for a moment, it was not wind at all.

“Don’t worry about it.” The man was looking troubled for the first time. “We’re too far away. We can’t do anything now.”

Something ached inside of Tony, and he glanced back out onto the road, back towards the sound of the wind, the way he came. “How long until we can get the car up and running again?”

“It doesn’t matter.” That same mournful tone. “See that road? It only goes one way. And that’s not backwards.”

“Oh.” He was spiraling, spiraling, so out of place. “So, this is just a detour?”

The man gave a startled laugh, his cigarette dropping onto the ground. “To be honest, I don’t know what in God’s good name this is.”

“Do you know what this means?” He was clutching the sweatshirt, this man’s sweatshirt, ever tighter in his hands because it felt important, something about this was terribly important, he had screwed up in some way that was terribly important-

The man hit him with that searching gaze. “Do _you_ know what it means?” And his eyes, those brown eyes. He knew those brown eyes.

“My kids,” Tony whispered. “One of my kids is your kid.”

The wind wailed through the gas station. A long, drawn out cry. The man squashed his cigarette butt more definitively into the dirt. Then he nodded.

Tony closed his eyes, focusing on how the fabric felt in his hands. “Was I supposed to bring him here? Did I…did I mess up? Did…what went wrong? Something feels wrong.”

The man looked at him carefully. “Why don’t you sit down? You’re tired.”

And he was. He was so tired. He could feel it in his bones, in his muscle, feeling mortal for the first time since he found his hands wrapped around the wheel of a truck he didn’t own. He sat down against a tire of the truck, cradling his head in his hands, pondering its weight. There was that odd sense of déjà vu, of something right on the tip of his tongue, pressing on his mind, just just out of reach. “I think I messed up.”

The man sat beside him, pulling another cigarette out of the box. He didn’t light it, but twirled it instead through his fingers, in and out and back again. He looked from the sweatshirt, to Tony. He smelled like home. Like the car.

Tony didn’t know what he was trying to say. He didn’t know why he was here. Where he was going, where he had been. He tugged on the sweatshirt and it frayed in his hands. He needed to be more careful. “I tried so hard. Or at least, I think I did.”

The man shrugged, still twirling, twirling. “It’s over now.”

But it wasn’t good enough, it couldn’t be good enough. “But what if I messed it all up, in the end?”

He finally put the cigarette down and looked at Tony, really looked at Tony, and he finally knew, he knew, he-

“Peter.”

Peter. A bundle of limbs and boy and laughter and genius and Tony had loved him in a thousand lifetimes, he had loved him in every lifetime, he had loved him in the lifetimes where he had swung from skyscrapers and he had loved him in the lifetimes where he asked for McFlurrys on the way home from baseball practice while Morgan sang an off-key rendition of “Let it Go” next to him in the backseat.

And he had failed him.

He had failed him in the ways that mattered. He had failed him as he died, as he lay crumbling to nothingness in Tony’s arms. He had failed to stop it coming, he had failed to tell the kid he loved him, he had failed to stay alive even when he had brought him back from the ashes. He couldn’t finish the job. He’d left so many ends frayed, untied.

The man shifted closer at his name, close enough that their shoulders touched, just barely. The wind cried again; the corn whistled.

When the man finally spoke, he was quiet, measured. “You’re here, aren’t you?”

“What?”

“You’re here.” He nodded. “And you’ve got the sweatshirt.”

Tony looked down at his hands.

“It was enough.” The man shrugged. “You were enough.” He stood up, as if it were that simple. Maybe it was. He gave a great kick to the truck, and Tony jumped. “I didn’t see you as a family man.”

“I didn’t either.” Tony surveyed the trunk, the litter of kids in the backseat. “I wasn’t one.”

“Looks like you were to me.”

There was a stuffed animal back there, a little worn-out turtle. He would drive five hours back to a hotel to pick up that turtle when it had been lost.

“Guess you can’t always judge a book by the cover.” The man shrugged, like it was easy, obvious. “Try the car.”

Tony cracked the door, tried the ignition. The engine flipped over once and then roared back to life. “Thank you.”

The man crossed his arms over his chest, weighing Tony up and down again. He looked so much like Peter it was uncanny. “I owed you. For a lot of things.”

“So, what happens now?” Tony stared at the grease on his hands, on the grease on both of their hands.

“Well,” the man rubbed his hands on his coveralls, leaving black fingerprints down the denim, “I guess you keep driving.”

“To where?” He squinted out at the road, to the endless horizon.

The man quirked an eyebrow. “I got no idea. But you need to go, don’t you?”

And he was right. Tony could feel it in his bones, the pull, to keep driving. He looked back in his car, but amongst all the debris of a road trip, there was no map. Maybe he would pull up somewhere, and all the car’s inhabitants would be there as well. Maybe he would keep driving forever.

He surveyed the idling car, then looked back at the man. “You want to come along?”

“I appreciate it.” A smile crossed his face for the first time since their conversation, but he shook his head ruefully. “But I gotta stay here. I’m waiting for some people. Making sure they find their way.”

Tony wondered if he had been waiting for him.

“Here,” he pushed the sweatshirt towards him, “you should have this then. In the mean time.”

But the man shook his head. “I gave it to Peter, and Peter gave it to you. It’s yours.”

“You’re sure?” And it felt right in Tony’s hands. Like it belonged there.

The man nodded. “I’ll catch up with you in a little bit, you hold onto it. In the mean time.”

Tony climbed into the truck and it rumbled beneath him. He couldn’t hear the wind crying anymore, because the cd player was crackling some Simon and Garfunkel he remembered singing to Morgan. The man slapped the hood before looking Tony in the eyes. Giving a brief nod.

Tony put the truck into drive, easing away, and the man rose one hand in a wave, curls blowing in the wind. Tony watched him through the rearview mirror, growing smaller and smaller until he was nothing more than a speck, a man waiting alone at a gas station, surrounded by a cloud of smoke and dust. A spider skittled along the dash, pausing at the wheel.

Tony drove on into the faded daylight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ta-da! 5+1 in the books :)
> 
> I am writing this hurriedly before work, BUT I hope you all liked the final installation. I knew I wanted to do something afterlife-y but I didn't want to make it too afterlife-y but I also didn't want it to be too confusing/vague, so HOPEFULLY this made some sort of sense and you all enjoyed :) I knew from the beginning of writing this that the ~only~ way for Tony to not have to wonder if he was being an okay father figure was to talk to Ben himself and, well, there was only one way to make that happen which endgame conveniently gave me.
> 
> I wanted to kinda explore how loss happens in life- Tony didn't really get some last big hurrah or real closure w/Peter after their traumatic experience on Titan. But he, and those he left behind, are still forced to reckon with his loss regardless (bc death waits for no one). Anyway, my goal with it all was to be hopeful- hopeful for love, forgiveness, and peace. I wanted there to be room for interpretation, but, in my mind at least, where ever Tony's driving is a good place to be.
> 
> tysm for reading this lil series, I had so much fun writing this and I promise I will be back soon w/more fics. Pls scream at me in the comments bc that is my lifeblood <3


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